Not an eye-for-an-eye, not a tooth-for-a-tooth – For an eye, both eyes! For a tooth, the whole jaw!

Rajya Sabha debate — unedited,
verbatim

Mr. Chairman, Sir, the Prime Minister and
my dear friends, Sir, I think, I can speak for everyone that the entire House
is with the Government in the effective steps that it may take in fighting
terrorism; and it is wonderful, Sir, you have suspended the Question Hour today
to alert the country about the urgency of the matter, and the appeal which the
State Home Minister has made for unity in the country in fighting this menace
is entirely welcome..and all of us endorse that appeal. But, Sir, the effective
steps have to be taken. The Minister of State for Home Affairs has just read
out a Statement in which a number of steps, which were required and which have
been urged time and again, have, at last, found a mention and an endorsement by
the Government. I welcome that, and I will supplement that list, Sir. I hope
that you will proceed on those lines as you do, and I am sure that you will
find the entire House with you. 

Before I come to making suggestions, I
very much want to compliment the Government on the initiative which has yielded
fruit just now. I have just seen, Sir, through Mr. Jaswant Singh’s office, a
report of rediff.com that ‘because of the initiative that has been taken, the
United Nations Security Council has placed sanctions on the Pakistan based
Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which is just an altered name of Lashkar-e-Toiba, and the four
top leaders of LeT, including Hafiz Mohammad Saeed whose vituperations against
India have not been acceded by anybody. He and three others, including Lakhvi,
have been declared ‘terrorists’ by the Security Council, and their assets have
been frozen. In all such initiatives, Sir, the entire House, indeed the
entire country, will be with you.

Sir, nine facts stand out in much of what
the Minister of State has just read out. Those are, actually, things that are
already known. But there are nine facts which stand out about this incident.
The first of these is exactly what our attention has been drawn to by my
friends from Assam,
and to which the Prime Minister has so graciously responded just now. Sir, this
is a sort of thing which is happening every month, every two months. In the
count that Mr. Jaswant Singh and I made of the incidents that have happened
only in 2008–I am not going to blame the Government, and so on, but please see
this as a national problem–in 2008 alone–I could have picked up any other
year–there were 49 such incidents in 19 cities; about 2,525 people have been
killed in these incidents.

Sir, the second fact is that this is
happening right across the country. Now, we have seen that these actual
incidents have happened everywhere. But there is another telling fact which the
people who follow terrorism, and this is what the Government reveals from time
to time, know that in just two years, from 2004 to 2006, 81 modules were busted
by our intelligence agencies. These were ISI modules in the country, all over
the country; 81. These exclude the modules in J&K and the North-East. So,
you can see their reach which they have been able to get. Now, we compliment
the intelligence agencies, and I am sure that, because these modules were
busted, many such incidents were prevented. But the fact that they were
busted is a testimony to the fact that they exist, and that one of the most
lethal espionage and terrorist agencies in the world, ISI, has been able to get
that penetration into India.

The third fact that stands out in that,
Sir,–and the Minister has just read out the Statement in which he also said
that–is that the finger of suspicion points to Pakistan
or to actors within Pakistan.
But the first point to remember in that, Sir, is that of its 60 years of
existence, Pakistan,
for 50 years, has been under the heel of the army.

I
think that none of us, in India,
can realise the terror and the pervasiveness of ISI in Pakistani state and
society. Therefore, to imagine that Lashkar-e-Toiba or any other agency could
do things without the knowledge, patronage, guidance, training and equipment of
ISI, is to live in a fool’s paradise.

Sir, Mr.
Jaswant Singh has always been emphasising it and the Americans have said, not
particularly they are dependent on the Pakistanis, that the attack on the
Indian Embassy in Kabul was the handiwork of the ISI and the attack on our
Embassy is an attack on the country. You will see the operational
significance of this when I just come to what the Government has been doing,
without criticising the Government, what India has been doing.

The fourth
fact, Sir, is that in these circumstances to ask Pakistan to help nail the
masterminds just does not make sense. To ask Mr.Zardari, the Pakistan
President, to do anything like this is meaningless. On the one hand, we are
being told that Mr. Zardari is not in control of these agencies and, on the
other, we are being told that we are appealing to him, “Please help;
please send the Director-General of the ISI here”.This is the
Zardari who, for getting the killers of his own wife identified, did not trust
the Pakistani investigators. He got the Scotland Yard there. He appealed to the
United Nations. And we are appealing to him! This is only to set up India in this
manner and to put faith in the statement of such persons. It is a pathology
in India
to look for some straw of a statement on which to hang our hopes. Mr. Musharraf
came here. He said, “mai is baar nayaa dil le ke aayaa huuN”, and all
sorts of acclamations to that. Similar is, just now, the statement of Mr.
Zardari that the fellows causing all the trouble in Jammu and Kashmir are terrorists. Again,
great acclamations and hope, and the moment these things came in India, Ms.
Sherry Rehman, the Minister of Information there, immediately issued a
statement that the President had never called the legitimate struggle of
Kashmiris an expression of terrorism and she reiterated that support for
Kashmir’s struggle for selfdetermination has been a consistent position of the
Pakistan People’s Party for 40 years. Therefore, in these circumstances, to
invite Pakistan
to come here for even discussions to put hope in the so-called joint mechanism
for fighting and investigating terror is to fool oneself. Actually, it is worse
than fooling oneself, because it means that you put them in the place of
judges. They will say whether our evidence is adequate or not.

Sir, the
fifth point that comes out is that no one in Pakistan has suffered for the
50,000-60,000 people who have been killed since the early eighties in India by
Pakistan-sponsored action and what the Minister of State for Home Affairs
has just read out has to be seen in the light of the fact that his very
Ministry has been placing in Parliament papers saying that infrastructure for
terrorism in Pakistan has not been rolled up at all. “Dismantled” is
the precise word. There is a Status Paper on internal security situation which
was presented by Mr. Shivraj Patil to the Parliament on 30th November. It says
that the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and PoK is yet to be
dismantled and is being used by Pakistan-based and Pakistan ISI sponsored
outfits like Jaish-e- Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Al Badr, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen,
etc., and they want to do nothing about it. Why? Because these organisations
are the instruments of the ISI and the Pakistan Army. When there was
international pressure on them, they made a show of it. Mr. Musharraf banned
these organisations, and the Pakistani newspapers immediately published the old
name and the new name.

Their
offices continued in the same way and their meetings for collection of
donations for terrorism continued in the same way.

[And it
wasn’t as if they were operating from some bank account that could be freezed]

So to
repose hope is to put ourselves in for difficulties. The sixth point that comes
out is local help. Yes, these are ISI inspired; they are ISI orchestrated.
Their principal instruments are Lashker-e-tayeba, etc. But none of this could
have happened without local help. Just see what the Home Minister has revealed.
They come to Colaba. They must know something about the coastline. They
immediately know where to go for the targets, which he has just listed out.
Within the hotels, as everybody has said, they knew the entire layout. They
went into the Taj Hotel, precisely to the place where the Manager’s wife and
two children were. How could that be known from satellite photographs or to
somebody sitting in Karachi?
So, it was because of the local help. And we are politically hamstrung in
pursuing that and talking openly about it.

The seventh
point is — it is a very important point — as you have just said about the
Coast Guard and so on, it has been established, time and again, that these
agencies abroad and these networks abroad like Lashker-e-tayeba, use existing
channels, for instance, of smugglers. I only have to remind you, because we
are talking about Mumbai, that in 1993, it has been established by the
Government that 1,800 kilograms of RDX and other arms and ammunitions also were
smuggled into India
by using those smuggler’s networks. Just to get a ban there is a wonderful
first step, but unless we get at these networks and the existing channels — I
will come to that as to what we are doing in this regard a little later — we
will never get anywhere.

Sir, I
completely endorse what the Home Minister has said that the entire nation feels
grateful for the bravery and the sacrifice of our poor NSG people and the other
security personnel. The fact of the matter is, if you look at the institutional
response to the attack, there was much to be desired, not because of the fault
of any individual in the Forces. In the first account, when the poor Mumbai
policemen and the Mumbai Anti Terrorist Squad got there with their exemplary
courage, you should have seen their arms and unpreparedness. I have tried to
make a timeline of the whole sequence. Even the Naval Commandos, who were in
Mumbai, were not called and did not come to the scene till two hours after the
attack. Everybody, who has studied terrorism, knows that whatever you have to
do to neutralise the terrorist plans can only be done in the first few minutes.
After that they have already succeeded. I am very happy that the Home Minister,
at last, has acceded to requests and entreaties from many quarters for many
years that there must be many NSG hubs. What has happened, Sir? Sir, from the
timeline that I have been able to establish, it took three hours for the
Government to decide to deploy the NSG. Whether it is because of the late
request from Mumbai or because of decision-making here, I do not want to cast
any aspersions. But it took three hours. After that it took five-and-a-half
hours, a total of nine hours, before our specialised Force was able to reach
there. When they reached there, after nine hours of the beginning of the
assault, they were blind. They did not have maps of the hotels and targets.

The ninth
fact, which has now been acknowledged here on page 3 of the statement, which
the Home Minister has read out, is about Intelligence reports actually having
come. There are many qualifications to what has been acknowledged. But if you
see para 12, it says: “Intelligence, regarding a suspected LeT vessel
attempting to infiltrate through the sea route, was shared with the Coast
Guard…” And then, of course, what the Navy did or did not do.

 

There
have been earlier reports, and the Home Minister says that it is not right for
him to comment on them. But the fact of the matter is that it has been leaked
by intelligence agencies that there were intercepts that these two hotels would
be among the targets. The third factor, which has now been acknowledged, is
that the coordinates of this vessel were given the information. You say now
that, at that moment, it was in the Pakistani territory. But you also say that
it was two days earlier. Do you mean that nothing happened after that? Somebody
has said, “Here is the Lashkar-e-Toiba vehicle. Hijack it.” And we
can just forget about it, [ke abhii to Pakistan ke waters meN hai..that it
is still in Pakistan
waters]

So,
intelligence was given. Yet what was our response? Again, I am not blaming
anybody. I am requesting everybody to kindly look upon it as an institutional
matter of what we have to strengthen and what we are up against. And the fact
that the Intelligence has been saying all these for a long time is evident from
very, very high, and I say, heavy quarters. I will read out to you how much
advance warning the Government has been giving to other people. In the annual
meeting in November, 2006, — the Home Minister has an annual meeting with the
Director-Generals of Police and the Inspector General of Police — which the
Prime Minister also was kind enough to address, the Home Minister tells them,
“Our coastal areas are coming under increased threat from terrorist groups
which have decided to use the sea route to infiltrate into India. They also
plan to induct arms and ammunitions through the sea routes.” That was in
November, 2006. Then, he says: “Some Lashkar-e-Toiba operatives are also
being trained specifically for sabotage, etc. There are plans to occupy some
uninhabited islands of the country’s coastline to use them as basis for
launching operations on the Indian coast.” What I want you to remember in
this is that these things could not have been said off-hand. I will come to
several of these; [koii alhaam to aa nahii rahaa thaa], that by a
certain revelation, the Ministers were saying all these things. 

As everyone
knows, from ground intelligence, things must have gone upwards, and then, it
made it, through the bureaucratic ladder, into the Home Minister’s statement.
This was in November, 2006. Then, on 8th March, 2007, the Home Minister was
asked in the Lok Sabha: Whether intelligence agencies have warned about the
possibility of terrorists trying to infiltrate through the sea route and trying
to target offshore installations.” The answer was: “Yes, Sir. There
are reports about terrorists of various tanzeems being imparted training and
likelihood of their infiltration through sea routes.” He was then asked:
“Whether maritime terrorism, gun-running, drug-trafficking and piracy are
major threats which India
is facing from the sea borders of the country?” His answer was: “Yes,
Sir.” Then, we come to 9th May, 2007, what he said in this very House. On
9th May, 2007, the Home Minister was asked in the Rajya Sabha: “Is it a
fact that there are strong apprehensions of terrorist threats to the country
through the sea route?” He says: “As per available reports, Pak based
terrorist groups, particularly LeT, have been exploring possibilities of
induction of manpower and terrorist hardware through the sea route.” Then,
on 8th December, 2007, the National Security Advisor, Shri M.K. Narayanan, was
educating the world at Manama,
in the Middle-East, at a Security Conference. He says, “According to our
intelligence reports, there are now certain new schools that are being
established on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border which now specialise in the
training of an international brigade of terrorists to fight in many climes.
According to our information, recruits from 14 to 15 countries have come.”

 

Then, he says, “The sea route, in
particular, is becoming the chosen route for carrying out many attacks, even on
land. References to this are to be found replete in current terrorist
literature. I would like, therefore, to sound a note of warning” — he is
telling other people — “that there is no scope for complacency.” Sir,
that is in 2007, December. Now, on 11th March, 2008, Mr. A.K. Antony, the
Defence Minister, also addresses the same thing. He is addressing the
International Maritime Search and Rescue Conference in Delhi. He says that the dangers of terror
attacks from the sea in the region are now mounting, and he says, what you are
now acknowledging, Sir, that you are taking steps, he says then, a year ago,
that the Coast Guard has deficiencies, but as bureaucrats say, all necessary
steps are being taken.

Then, Sir, I come to the Prime Minister
himself, and his alertness in these matters. On the 13th November, 2008, just a
fortnight before the assaults, he is educating the BIMSTEC leaders that
terrorism and threats from the sea continue to challenge the authority of the
State. But, that is just a fortnight before the assaults. But, on the 22nd
November, 2008, four days before the assaults, the Home Minister is addressing
the Directors-General of Police again, and he says, “To control terrorism
in the hinterland, we have to see that infiltration of terrorists from other
countries does not take place through the sea route.” [Arre, aap kisko kah
rahe ho? Hey, who are you saying this to?

“Or through the borders between India and… you can’t say Bangladesh,
friendly countries. The coast lines also had to be guarded through the Navy,
the Coast Guard and the Coastal Police.” I am reading this because that is
the context in which we must now see the new assurances which have been given,
whether they will also become like this. “The States’ Special Branches and
the CID should identify the persons forming part of the sleeper cells and
lodging in cities and towns and studying in educational institutions” —
they got those fake passes of educational institutions — “and working in
industries and professions.” Sir, they are not consultants to the
Government; they are the Government. [You are saying this to the states…]
But, it is the IB’s job to identify these. Sir, I want to supplement this by
drawing the attention of the House to the fog of unreality in which all this is
being done. [I just read out the statement of the hon home minister that he had
given on November 22, 2008. Now look at the facts of that day.] On the 25th and
26th November, 2008, that is, very literally on the eve of these attacks, our
Home Secretary and his entire senior team was in Islamabad for a Joint
Conference with the Secretary, Interior of the Pakistan Government. In their
joint statement, what do they say? Now just see what is our psychology? This
Joint Statement is issued on 26th November, 2008. Just now, Sir, you said that
the terrorists came in those inflatable boats between 8.00 and 8.30.Now let’s
see what statement was given there, after gol gappas

“The meeting was held in a cordial
and friendly atmosphere. Both sides discussed the issues related to terrorism
and drug trafficking and reviewed the implementation of decisions taken during
the last round.” Now, see, “Both sides noted with satisfaction the
progress made and identified ways to further promote cooperation in a number of
areas. Both sides condemned terrorism in all its forms and
manifestations.” [And they are organising!] “Both sides
condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and affirmed their
resolve”, as just now we have been asked to affirm our resolve, “to
cooperate with each other to combat the menace of terrorism.”

Exactly these are the words that have been
used for Assam.

 

 

“It was agreed that terrorism must
be prevented and as directed by the leadership of the two countries at the
meeting in New York
on 24th September 2008, severe action be taken against any elements involved in
terrorist acts.” And, that very day, using that very sea route, the
terrorists come to those very targets. [Sir, there is a line from Vinobaji:
hamaare yahaaN baat hii kaa kaam hai, kaam kii baat nahii hai. This is the
problem. You have issued a very good appeal for unity. It is a very good thing.
We are all with you. But it has to be done. You just now said:] India is in the
eye of the storm of these terrorist onslaughts. I narrated to you that
there have been 49 massive assaults, not incidents; and, 49 times, cyclostyled
statements have been issued, ‘cowardly, dastardly’. Just now, when the session
commenced, you read out just such a statement. It is routinised.

I want to
tell you, before coming to specific things that the situation is definitely
going to get worse for six reasons. First, Pakistan is not going to suffer at
all as it has not suffered for killing 50-60 thousand Indians already. Second,
not just the infrastructure within Pakistan remains, the infrastructure that is
used for and within India remains exactly as it was–the smugglers’ routes, the
hawala networks and the perverted discourses with which we are saddled. Third,
there is a great pressure on Pakistan.
We must see what is happening in Pakistan. You knit your eyebrows a
little bit, what do they put out? “We will have to withdraw our forces
from the Western border.” Immediately blackmailing America, U.S.‘s main problem. [We are
asking America
to tell them something! We only hope that Condoleeza Rice has come, perhaps she
would say something. What would she say? Her term ends in five weeks. She
would be gone then. But apart from that]America
is dependent on Pakistan 
and Pakistan
just reminds it of these things from time to time. The fourth fact is that
actually speaking, Pakistan
having nurtured these extremists, now if it keeps deflecting them in Afghanistan, it
is in trouble because of NATO pressure, American pressure. If it keeps them at
home, it is in very severe trouble as we have seen. Therefore, the option of
choice that they will exercise is to deflect extremists once again into India. Fifth
and very important, that in the coming months, the U.S. will retreat in defeat
from both Iraq and Afghanistan and this will be a great boost to the
extremists, ‘That we have made the great Satan run away’, and they cannot get
to America easily. They can get somewhat more easily to Europe.
But, we are the open and open target.

Sir, the
sixth point, which is the point our Assam friends were also
emphasising, that this is just one of the assaults that we are facing. Those
who mapped these districts and so on, will realise, Sir, of the 608 districts,
today 231 are affected by extremist violence or insurgency of one kind or the
other. [Leave aside Assam,] even a peaceful State like Arunachal
Pradesh, the three districts of Lohit, TIRAP, and Changlang have now started
getting affected by the terrorist recruitment drive there! Gill Sahab knows
that very well.

We must
remember that, Sir, it was just four years ago that the Maoist rebellions
started in two small patches in Nepal and within two years it was in every part
of Nepal and within four years it had completely conquered Nepal

. We must
realise that. Finally, the point is that not only, Sir, is the finger of
suspicion there, but your intelligence reports, I can say from my personal
knowledge, because I have reproduced many of them, say, they record, that
actually the ISI is now knitting together Indian insurgence extremist groups
even in the North East.

Therefore,
things are going to get much worse. So, Sir, what should be done, I will now
just come to that and these are in a constructive spirit and I do hope that the
Government especially the Prime Minister with his knowledge of what had
happened in Punjab, he has the firsthand knowledge of what is happening in the
North East, which is a matter of great concern to him because he represents the
North East in the House, and, I hope they will be taken in that spirit. My
first point, Sir, is, please stop running to ‘mummy’. This business of putting
faith that somebody else will do our work for us — [‘Condoleeza Rice would
come’ … ‘There is a statement from Barack Obama’].  Nobody
will do it for the reasons that I have already outlined to you in the case, for
example, of America.
The same is the case with China.
China is the prop
of Pakistan.
They have a strategy, they say ‘murder with a borrowed knife’, find a natural
enemy of your adversary, arm it, encourage it and it will do your job for it.
This is what they have been doing on nuclear proliferation or any other
matter. 

Second
point, Sir, is please stop this miscalled peace process because
one of the very unfortunate statements that was agreed to by the Indian
Government, in this case by the Prime Minister, was terrorists will not be allowed
to come in way to derail the peace process. What did this mean — Pakistan then had both options, go on
doing terrorist attacks and the onus of keeping the peace process going would
remain on India.
That is it. Shed this. You know there is always an argument that is made to us
when Musharraf was strong, ‘no, no, he is there, he is strong, you have to make
some concessions on Kashmir.” When he was
weak, ‘no, no, he is your best bet, you must make some concessions to him, and
you strengthen him.’ Now there is so-called democracy, you say, ‘Democracy,
therefore, you must strengthen democracy, you must make concessions and you
must keep the peace process going even as we are badgered everyday. There is a
line from Josh Malihabadi: [zulm kartaa hai dushman aur ham sharmaaye rahte
haiN–the enemy oppresses us, but we are in a state of feeling shy]